


I Put My Faith Inside My Hands

by firstbreaths



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13042077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/pseuds/firstbreaths
Summary: Stanford also had the advantages of an excellent co-curricular program, a reasonable student-bathroom ratio, and they’d offered her a partial scholarship, which meant that her mom didn’t feel obligated to sell a few organs in order for Elena to attend.(“You know I would, though, right?” her mom had said. Schneider had added, “I mean, I wouldn’t sell my kidney, but I’m sure my appendix could attract a few on the black market. There’s enough people out there without one who might be desperate.”)Elena's first semester of college comes with more than a few lessons.





	I Put My Faith Inside My Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sonni89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonni89/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide Sonni89! This show is everything I ever needed in my life - so thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to write for it, and I hope you enjoy! The title is from _Jungle_ by Tash Sultana. 
> 
> Thanks also to K for the beta. Any further mistakes are my own (aka please pretend that Stanford is an Ivy League school because this fic was written/beta'd by two Australians).

Elena’s first day of college is about as crazy as every other day in her life. And, as always, it’s mostly but not entirely Schneider’s fault. 

Schneider helps her move in, because her mom’s shoulder is playing up again, and _he’d_ been the one to insist that Elena couldn’t sleep on the mattress provided for her, because what if there were bed bugs, so of course he has to help her carry it in. Right as they’re about to leave for the multi-hour drive, Alex decides to come along too, desperate for the chance to tell his friends that he’d even _met_ a college girl.

“You do know one… me,” Elena says loudly, as they all bustle out the door, because she still can’t quite believe it. She’s finally going to college. 

“Yeah, but you’re my sister,” Alex replies. “And you don’t wear lipstick, which means I can’t get Abuelita to kiss me and pretend it’s from a cute girl called Lucy, who’s a vegan and plans on studying marine biology to save the whales.”

“I can’t believe you’re in on this,” Elena accuses Abuelita. 

“I’m not,” says Abuelita. “This ‘Lucy’ cannot be a vegan, what would I feed her? A _salad_?”

Elena loves her family, but right now… she’s _so_ glad to be going to college. 

*

When they arrive at campus, Elena walks as slowly as she can to her dorm, trying to soak everything in. She takes in the size of the library, the multiple convenient places to get caffeine, the professor carrying a stack of books with titles in Latin and wearing a tweed coat, even though it’s ninety degrees out. 

At her dorm, Schneider busies himself with immediately switching the mattress on her bed with the one he’d brought, even though the room is currently so sparse there’s no real opportunity for bedbugs. Meanwhile, Alex gives her a hug and says softly in her ear, “I definitely look you up to you, you know,” before burying his head into her shoulder. 

For a moment, Elena is touched, and then she snaps back to her senses — college isn’t a place to let your guard down, after all — and steps away to glare at him. Sure enough, Alex is holding up a ten dollar note that he’d nicked from the pocket of her sweats and says, “as the oldest child in the house now, I’m going to have to provide for Mom and Abuelita more, so I think this is mine.”

“At least you didn’t say oldest son,” Elena says. “I’d hate to have to give my rant about patriarchal stereotypes _again_.”

“Patri-what what?” Alex says, even though she _knows_ he knows what ‘patriarchy' means, and Elena feels tears unexpectedly well in her eyes. 

“Look out for Mom and Abuelita… and Schneider,” she says, quickly. Schneider stops trying to drag the old mattress out of her room; Elena’s pretty sure he also has tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Before she can say anything, however, Schneider leaps at them both, pulling them into a giant hug. 

The mattress Schneider has just let go of wobbles for a moment before falling, trapping him underneath it. 

A girl, who Elena assumes must be her roommate, Belinda, walks in at that moment. She’s wearing an incredibly short skirt, and has on enough makeup to supply an entire theatrical troupe. “Who’s the cute guy?” she asks, just as Schneider yelps from under the mattress. 

After a moment, he calls out, “don’t worry, just stubbed my toe. Oh god, I think it’s broken! Somebody call an RA… wait, someone call an ambulance!”

Belinda looks like she wants to rescue him, which is a whole level of awkward Elena doesn’t need in her life, so she says quickly, “he’s dating my mom.” 

She stamps on Alex’s foot as he goes to protest. Schneider’s weird relationship with the Alvarez family is so incestuous that he’s about the last person Elena can imagine her mom dating, even though they regularly pretend to be married to get access to couples’ spa packages and two-for-one Tuesdays at Taco Bell, but if it shuts Belinda up…

“Well, you’re lucky,” Belinda says, shrugging. “I’m gonna bring my stuff in now,” she adds, before turning and leaving. 

Schneider crawls out from under the mattress. “Did a college girl really just think I”m cute?” He fist pumps the air. “Still got it!” 

After a moment, he adds, “Did you just say I’m dating your mom… if that’s the case, maybe I don’t got it.”

Alex curls his finger next to his ear to indicate that he’s crazy, and silently mouths ‘good luck’ before helping Schneider drag the mattress away. Elena sinks down on to her unmade bed and prays to a god that she doesn’t believe in that the rest of her college experience will be better than this.

*

In the morning, when Belinda wakes up complaining of back pain while Elena got a solid seven and a half hours sleep before freshman orientation, she texts Schneider and just says _‘thanks_ ’. 

Schneider texts back: _just for the record, I would never date your mum. She’s like a cousin, or maybe an aunt to me._

Later, he adds: _maybe don’t tell her the ‘aunt’ part._

*

Elena throws herself into college with the same vigour she’s previously reserved for absolutely everything else in her life, except perhaps PE. 

When the time had come to apply for colleges, Elena had gotten in almost everywhere she’d applied for, including a handful of the Ivys. Her Abuelita hadn’t understood that there were reasons to differentiate between colleges other than the quality of the bathrooms (“It is bad enough that you have to share with strangers, but if you don’t have the correct lighting to do your makeup, you’ll end up looking like a clown… or worse, a hooker,” she’d said), but Elena knew that, deep down, she was just worried about losing daily access to her granddaughter. 

In the end, she had gotten the opportunity to turn down Harvard… for Stanford. Stanford was still an Ivy League school, but it came with the advantage of being in the same state, so her family could drive up and visit somewhat regularly. Just not _too_ regularly. Stanford also had the advantages of an excellent co-curricular program, a reasonable student-bathroom ratio, and they’d offered her a partial scholarship, which meant that her mom didn’t feel obligated to sell a few organs in order for Elena to attend. 

(“You know I would, though, right?” her mom had said. Schneider had added, “I mean, _I_ wouldn’t sell my kidney, but I’m sure my appendix could attract a few on the black market. There’s enough people out there without one who might be desperate.”)

Her high school had even done a feature article about her in its magazine, although Elena had snapped the fourth time she saw one sticking out of the waste bin with her eyebrows filled in to give her a monobrow. After nearly three years, they hadn’t even learnt to recycle properly! 

(Neither, it turns out, does Belinda, but Elena’s got another four years to win over the students of the East Wing. She can start out small, like by finding her way across campus to her math class.)

The one question she hadn’t been able to answer when picking a college was what she wanted to major in - writing would be a natural fit, clearly, but one day she wants to help her mom stop relying on Veterans Affairs and it’s not like Stanford has produced enough many Man Booker winners recently that she’s guaranteed a decent pay check. Environmental science had been an option for a hot minute — okay, maybe she’s a bit hung up on the recycling thing — until her biology class had been forced to collect insects for a practical. And going to Stanford for undergrad is one thing, but the idea of Ivy League law makes her break out in hives just considering it.

So, Elena goes to class, where she sits in the front row and (mostly) listens attentively, and after the first week _maybe_ she’s a little freaked out that none of her classes have screamed ‘major in me!’, but that’s what college is for, and she’s got plenty of time. Right? 

*

At the start of Elena’s second week of college, she’s on her way to the cafeteria after class, a stack of textbooks balanced precariously under one arm, when she runs smack bang into someone, and looks down to see a pair of Doc Martins, decorated in liquid paper skulls and flowers. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” Elena says, juggling her textbooks to avoid them falling on Carmen’s foot. 

“I’m pre-med,” Carmen says, deadpan. “Before they’ll let us near a cadaver, I apparently have to learn calculus.”

Elena stares at her, still disbelieving. 

“Oh, you meant _here_?” she says. “Well, my parents have always wanted me to attend an Ivy League school, and Texas isn’t exactly home to many of those. Besides, you know how much I’ve missed the California sunshine.”

“Right,” Elena says, letting out a long laugh. Her books fall haphazardly to the ground as she leaps into Carmen’s arms for a hug. 

*

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks Carmen, a few days later, as they head from the library back to their dorms. They’ve started getting meals together in the cafeteria and then studying together afterwards and, as much as she’s missed Carmen’s dry sense of humour and patience when listening to Elena rant about the douchey frat boy in her world lit class, it’s weird that, until a week ago, she thought her friend would be suffering between heatwaves at UT Austin. 

“I mean, we could have put in a preferential housing request and been roommates. I’m a scholarship student, I doubt they would have denied _me._ Plus my mum probably would have tried to pull the Latina card if they did. Or the first-gen daughter of a disabled woman one.” Elena pauses. “Gosh, my family’s like a alt-right Reddit warrior’s worst nightmare.”

Carmen is silent for a long time, which unnerves Elena — Carmen’s silences are frequent, but typically shorter, and much more predictable. 

“I didn’t know how you’d react to me being here,” she says, finally. “You graduated valedictorian and spent days writing this insane speech encouraging your peers to go out and change the world, even though you hated all of them, and I just…” Carmen’s voice is small. “I thought you’d move on from me.”

“Never,” Elena says fervently, reaching out to hold Carmen’s hand. “You knew me when I was… well, before I had the opportunity to become whatever I want to be.”

Even if she doesn’t know _quite_ what that is, just yet. 

“Right, so back when your bookmarks full of Malia Obama photos were for an academic study into racism in online media?”

“Shut up,” Elena says loudly. Carmen’s mouth goes lopsided, which for her is a good as a laugh, and Elena feels a weight she didn’t know she’d been holding on to lift from her chest. 

*

“So,” her mom asks on the phone, later that week, “any cute girls in your gender studies class?”

Elena rolls her eyes, because _of course_ her mom would assume that all the lesbians on campus are enrolled in Introduction to Human Sexuality from 9-11 on Tuesdays with Professor O’Connell. But then she stops and thinks — her mom asks about the cute girls on Alex’s mixed soccer team all the time (based on his Snapchat, Schneider has become the ultimate soccer mom), and this is just the same thing.

“No,” she says, finally, because she is _truly_ grateful that her mom is trying. “But there _is_ a cute girl in my world lit class.”

“At least she’ll be well prepared,” Elena’s mom says, after a short pause. “Because trying to keep up with you is like reading _War and Peace_.”

“We’re not reading _War and Peace_ , Mom. The curriculum got updated like a decade ago, although if you ask me, there’s still not enough emphasis on women of colour in these works, and _One Hundred of Solitude_ is fine as an example of Latin American literature, but I’ve read ahead in the notes they handed out in the first lecture, and I’m wary of how the professor is going to handle the balance between fantasy and actual Latin American history…”

“See what I mean,” her mom says. “Cute world literature girl isn’t going to get a single word in.”

*

The cute girl in her world literature class turns out to be Caitlyn-with-a-y (Caitlin-with-a-i-, Elena’s informed, is completely and utterly straight, and Kaitlin-with-a-k apparently has a massive stash of weed in her dorm room), and they go on one and a half dates, before Caitlyn has an allergic reaction to fish sauce in the pad thai at the second closest Thai restaurant to campus (Elena isn’t exactly _hiding_ her sexuality these days, but it had seemed like the safer option). 

After Elena has taken several deep breaths, mentally run through all her first aid training, and then located Caitlyn’s epi-pen in her purse, Caitlyn looks at her through puffy eyes and says, “this probably isn’t a good time to point out that I wasn’t, you know, feeling this.”

Caitlyn waves her hand vaguely in front of her, like Elena doesn’t know what _this_ is. She feels her stomach drop. 

“But… how am I meant to get home?”

“I called you an ambulance,” Elena shouts, as she storms out of the restaurant. She wasn’t the first person in her tenth grade class to pass her first aid exam for nothing. 

*

The next morning, there’s a knock on her dorm room door. Belinda is still out, probably puking her guts up in an alley way trash can somewhere. At some point, Elena stopped being amazed by how much she could drink, and instead offered her up to Carmen as a medical experiment. 

Carmen looks over at Belinda’s side of the room, her expression both awestruck and horrified. “Who murdered My Little Pony and smeared the remains all over the walls?” she asks, sitting down on the end of Elena’s unmade bed. “I’m kind of into it.”

Before Elena can ask what’s happening, Carmen hands her a cup of steaming hot coffee from the vending machine down the hall. 

“Intuition,” Carmen says, with an impatient sigh. There’s a pause. “Also, Caitlyn’s best friend lives in my building, so I may have overheard…” 

“Right,” Elena says. She _really_ doesn’t want to talk about Caitlyn — at three in the morning, the wastepaper basket next to her desk overflowing with tissues, she’d finally decided that it didn’t need to be a big deal. Going to college was as much about figuring out who you _didn’t_ want to date, who you _didn’t_ want to be and well — after everything that happened with her _quinceañera,_ Elena’s already got a pretty good sense of who she is, college major aside, but there’s always room for self-improvement. 

Elena suddenly, really misses her mom. She downs half the coffee Carmen brought her in one gulp, and almost immediately regrets it when her left leg starts jittering.

“I bought Netflix,” Carmen says, holding out her laptop. “And store-brand choc-chip cookies, and your favourite brand of popcorn, because fuck the stereotype that sad people have to eat Ben and Jerry’s.” 

“I _have_ Netflix already.” 

“Just let me do the whole cheering up thing before I break out in hives,” Carmen says, before toeing off her Doc Martins and curling up next to Elena like she doesn’t even notice the snot encrusted on the collar of her shirt.

About halfway through the episode, her leg stops shaking. When she looks down, Carmen’s hand is resting on her thigh, even though her friend’s attention is entirely on the movie. 

*

After that, Elena’s feeling better — so she does what most people do when they’re feeling worse, and throws herself (even further) into all her classes. It helps that Caitlyn-with-a-y seems to have magically dropped their world lit class, along with douchey frat boy and several others; clearly not everyone can handle _One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich._ (Okay, maybe Elena’s a little bitter, but mostly at herself for forgetting that college is the place for her to develop the skills she needs to make the world a better place, not to find The One.) 

She tries very hard not to think about Carmen’s hand on her thigh. 

She also tries really hard not to think about the fact that world lit is _not_ at all what she wants to major in (could Ivan Denisovich _be_ any more annoying?). 

*

Maybe it’s the whole repressing what may be a crush on her best friend that she doesn’t want to examine thing, but about a month into semester, things come to a head in Introduction to Human Sexuality. Her mom would be _so_ proud. 

The discussion about how sexuality has been governed by a range of religious, legal and medical discourses is interesting enough (although Elena’s still finding it strange that her life is actually one of openly discussing these things with people other than Carmen, now) when one of the boys in her class who’s spent most of the last two weeks sitting in the back and playing hangman with his girlfriend finishes a point about how legal discrimination againstLGBT people is coming to an end because “we’ve already passed same sex marriage laws, isn’t that the big thing you were fighting for?”

And, theoretically, Elena knows he doesn’t mean _you specifically_ , but she can’t help herself. “Marriage equality is just the beginning of the battle,” she says, fighting the urge to stand up in her seat. “I mean, great, I can fully participate in a tradition that originated from men trying to control their daughters and trade them for a bunch of goats… at least the fight about who will be a stay at home mom in my future relationship won’t matter so much given the likelihood that one of us will get fired for our sexual orientation or have to take time off to manage the mental illnesses that we’re statistically more likely to struggle with.”

“Well yeah, but…”  
  
“Elena makes some good points, Michael. We’ll be discussing more about how different societies have viewed marriage among non-heterosexual individuals next week.”

“I can defend my own good points, you know,” Elena mutters to herself. The boy sitting two seats down from her must overhear, because when she turns to face him he shrugs and flashes her an apologetic smile that makes her feel worse … sure, not everyone is like Michael, but for all the time she’s spent ranting about the consequences of how conservatism is rooted in the continued dominance of the Ivy League education system, she’d also been quick to believe that most of her classmates, at least those attending a gender and sexuality studies class, weren’t like that, really. 

After class, Elena slings her bag over her shoulder and stares directly at her Converse, still unable to believe that the girl who’d once panicked about wearing a pantsuit to her _quinceañera_ , attended mostly by relatives who could barely remember her name, had just announced that she was a lesbian so openly. She should know better than to let her guard down.

Unfortunately, her attempts at avoiding eye contact are rendered fruitless when someone, wearing their own pair of battered Converse, stands directly in her path. The boy who’d smiled at her is standing there, looking a little expectant, which can only mean… Not that she has a lot of experience with these things. 

“I’m Zach,” he says, extending a hand, which Elena takes warily. 

“You aren’t going to ask me out, are you?” she says stupidly, still holding Zach’s hand limply. “Because I certainly wasn’t making my point to get male attention.”

“I was going to ask you to come along to debate team - you’re a little, er, overzealous, but otherwise you’re exactly what I think we need,” Zach says, dropping Elena’s hand. “Although, with logic like that, I may have to reconsider my offer.”

“No! Don’t!” Elena says, before she can stop herself. 

“Alright, alright.” Zach throws his hands up in the air. “Though you can’t just scream that you don’t want male attention at the guys from UC Santa Barbara, as much as you might want to. I mean, some of them are cute enough, but listening to them debate, you’d think all that bleach has finally gotten to them.”

Something clicks for Elena suddenly. “You’re gay, aren’t you?” she says, nodding at him. “Sorry, I’m a lesbian. Well, not _sorry_ , but… you got the whole lesbian thing, right?”

“That’s more like it,” Zach says, and he grins. “See you in Room 308 in the McIntyre building, six pm on Thursday.”

*

She pulls out her phone to text Carmen the good news, almost running into someone as she does (honestly, it’s starting to become a habit). Almost unsurprisingly, it’s Carmen herself. 

“I’m starting to think my Mom’s right, and you’re actually a vampire. You know, like Snape, in Harry Potter, when he just shows up out of nowhere.”

“Snape wasn’t a vampire, Elena,” Carmen says patiently, like they hadn’t spent several lunch times in tenth grade vehemently agreeing that _The Cursed Child_ violated all the rules of the Harry Potter universe anyway. 

“Would you prefer I use _Twilight_ as a metaphor? I mean, that’s probably what my mom had in mind… her bookclub read _Fifty Shades of Grey_ , and I _swear_ Abuelita picked up her copy when she was done.”

“Twilight metaphors are _so_ 2008,” Carmen replies. “I approve.”

Elena laughs, and then remembers her news. “I got invited to join the debate team… well, I have to try out, I assume, but I just impressed at least one of their members in class back there, and I still have all my notes saved from senior year debating, so I’m more than ready to argue both sides of the euthanasia debate, if it comes up. Not to mention all the practice I got debating just about everything with my mom…” She pauses. “I mean, of course I’m one-hundred per cent pro-euthanasia, because nobody should be able to tell us what to do with our bodies at the end of our lives, but…”

Elena breaks off; Carmen is staring at her, a little wide-eyed, and with the dopiest grin Elena has ever seen her wear.

“Nothing,” she says, before she steps forward and pulls Elena into a bone crushing hug, Carmen’s satchel caught awkwardly between them. Elena catches a whiff of her shampoo and makes a mental note to ask what brand it is — her grandmother would be horrified by her split ends. 

That’s all it is, she tells herself, again. Casual dating with Caitlyn-with-a-y, or the occasional Netflix binge when she should be studying is one thing (and honestly, it’s one-hundred per cent the _Doctor Who_ writers’ fault for casting Jodie Whittaker and then letting the Doctor wear overalls), but having a crush on her best friend is the kind of distraction Elena absolutely does not need. 

*

On Thursday night, Elena shows up with a fistful of flash cards covering everything from euthanasia to animal welfare, the Bill of Rights, and whether English should be the national language. The rest of the debate club is milling around when she gets there, and a few people smile in her direction as she heads for Zach, so rumours must have spread about why she’s here. 

Zach introduces her to his friend, and apparently co-captain of the debate club, Lauren, who is barely five foot tall and immediately shakes her hand with great enthusiasm. Elena immediately feels reassured.

“Look, just sit and watch for the first round, and then we’ll set you up with someone to learn… maybe Jackie, she’s been around forever. We’re just assigning topics to each team now.”

“Wait, what about tryouts?” Elena asks, in a rush. 

“Relax, Elena, you’re in,” says Lauren, and Elena lets go of the flash card she’d scrunched up in her left fist without realising. “After Zach told me about what you said in class, we weren’t going to say no.”

“You _weren’t_?” 

“Tryouts were three weeks ago, Elena,” Lauren explains patiently. “Except damn Debbie Fisher said yes to debating, but then she also joined the chemistry club, and decided to try out for crew and well…”

“Now you have me,” Elena says, unable to believe it. 

Lauren smiles. “Welcome to the team.”

*

She treats her first debate with Jackie and a sophomore named Peter like a tryout anyway. Nobody claps, but Lauren says ‘well done’, and Jackie, who hadn’t cracked a smile all evening, nudges Elena with her wheelchair and says ‘I still think Zach’s exaggerating about you, but maybe there’s something there.”

It feels like just as much of a victory. 

Later, Elena texts her mom the news. Her mom texts back an incomprehensible string of emojis, including several thumbs-up. She then follows it up with a second set of emojis, equally incomprehensible, which she says are from Schneider and Abuelita.

She never should have left Alex alone with them.

*

The following week, Elena is scheduled to meet with her advisor to discuss how she’s settling into college. Rebecca, her advisor, looks barely older than Elena herself, but there’s a poster advertising a feminist league meet and greet on her wall, and a collection of diet soda cans clearly meant for recycling, so Elena thinks she’s probably lucked out. (In the binders full of research she’d done when deciding upon a college, she’d read a _lot_ about the pitfalls of ineffective student advising… though she suspected that most of the frat bros who dropped out of college to go to Silicon Valley or Wall Street and wrote blogs about how college “wasn’t necessary” also thought they were above help, especially from a a profession dominated by women.) 

The conversation starts off well enough — Elena talks about how glad she is that her Introduction to Twentieth Century History class is not only covering the women’s rights movement, but that her lecturer has also introduced feminist methodologies as a way of thinking about all historical events (“I mean, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ is _such_ an insult to the millions of British women who were already doing just that,” she says, and Rebecca nods encouragingly). They also talk about her recycling initiative, which she’d mentioned in her admissions essay, a copy of which is now facing upright on Rebecca’s desk. 

Eventually, however, they arrive at the topic of exactly what Elena plans to study after she’s finished writing what will be a fantastic essay on understanding Reaganomics from a feminist perspective, and Elena’s throat suddenly feels tight.

“I mean, your record is outstanding,” Rebecca says, kindly. “But you will need to think about declaring a major shortly. It’s okay to not know what you want to do, but most students find it…”

“I thought my admissions essay made it very clear,” Elena interrupts. “I’m interested in social justice, and I want to help stand up for the rights of others.” She feels a prickle of annoyance, deep under her skin; why does she _always_ have to explain herself? She also ignores the fact that she’s lashing out because of her own insecurities — that kind of self-denial is a well-worn Alvarez trait that she doesn’t need to dissect. 

“Unfortunately we don’t offer a major in ‘social justice’. But there are plenty of options….”

“Or do you question my commitment because I’m not white, and my family wasn’t rich enough for me to go build houses in Haiti over the summer? Even though all that does is take away employment opportunities and stop locals from building the capacity to improve their own communities and, honestly, is a totally colonial attitude to have…”

“That’s… not what I’m saying at all,” Rebecca says, open-mouthed. “I just meant that most students find it easier to declare a major, take at least one or two upper level classes, and then change later if it turns out they’re not actually into Chinese pottery or math.”

“Oh.” Elena sits down and takes a deep breath. “Right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” 

“I didn’t pour my heart out in my personal statement for nothing,” she says, trying not to sound self-defeatist.

“I know you didn’t,” Rebecca says. “For what it’s worth, applying to Stanford with an essay that lamented upon the ‘elitist echo chamber of the Ivy League’ was a bold strategy.”

“I take it the Dean didn’t personally read my essay, then? Giving a scholarship to a Latina to boost your diversity rep is one thing, but admitting someone who has deep seated concerns about the American education system and the way it reinforces social hierarchies…”

“You didn’t get the scholarship because you’re Latina.”

Elena almost laughs; once, she would have killed to hear those words. Now, she’s been admitted on her own merit and she _still_ feels like she’s not quite good enough. She doesn’t quite know how to articulate any of that right now, though, so she says, “Okay, I’ll come back to my next meeting with some options to consider majoring in so we can finalise my schedule for next semester. But just so you know, it won’t be Chinese pottery… or math.”

*

Afterwards, Elena texts Carmen to meet her at her dorm, knowing that her friend won’t judge her for the way she’d treated Rebecca. When she arrives, Carmen is already there, holding out a paper plate with three pop tarts (cinnamon, her favourite flavour), and she doesn’t say anything as Elena downs half the first one in a single bite. (If everyone has this much trouble deciding on a major, the freshman fifteen suddenly makes a lot more sense.) 

“I just felt…” Elena says, after she’s told Carmen the whole story (Carmen, too, loves the idea of her essay and has a few interesting observations about reactions to Reagan when compared to Thatcher). “I was so _rude._ ” 

“You’re like, totally passionate about everything,” Carmen says. “I don’t understand it at all, but it’s one of the things I love about you.”

Elena chokes on a mouthful of pop-tart. 

“I’ve known I wanted to be a doctor since I was eight and saw _Embarrassing Bodies_ on cable,” Carmen continues, like she hadn’t just caused Elena’s face to become flushed and her hands clammy. (Elena tries to not to laugh at the irony that her pre-med best friend can just make her heart stop).“I’m lucky that I had my botched-surgery inspired awakening early, but there’s no need to worry that you haven’t figured it out, yet.”

“I just want to do so much, you know.”

Carmen doesn’t say anything, but her left hand finds Elena’s, while she reaches out and steals Elena’s untouched third pop-tart with her right. 

“Cinnamon… gross,” Carmen says, as she takes a huge bite. 

Belinda comes back then, and raises an eyebrow at them, sitting on Elena’s bed with their hands clasped together and their thighs touching, surrounded by pop-tart crumbs.

There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but Elena musters up all her courage and says, “we’re not… well, I am.” She realises then that Carmen has never explicitly articulated her sexuality, despite years of them talking fervently about whether or not Ellen Degeneres would be such a popular LGBT icon if she and Portia weren’t white. “But we’re not dating.”

She looks Belinda in the eye, trying hard to control her breathing. She has no reason to suspect that Belinda’s homophobic, but well… she’s been wrong before. 

“Whatever,” Belinda says quickly, waving a hand. “I don’t judge.”

And with that, she walks over to her side of the room, dodging piles of clothes and books on the floor as she goes, pulls out her laptop and headphones, and begins to watch something on Netflix.

Carmen stills hasn’t let go of her hand. “I am too, you know,” she says quietly, uncharacteristically not looking at her. 

Elena lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and squeezes Carmen’s hand harder. 

*

October flies by. Elena's team wins their first debate, and Zach is awarded Best Speaker, but he tells her afterwards that her research into the pros and cons of a sugar tax were invaluable. Honestly, she’s just relieved that she didn’t pass out at the podium, she’d been so nervous about letting her team down. She gets As on all of her homework, even her reflection piece on _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ (the fears she’d expressed to her mom had sadly come true), manages not to eat _too_ many pop tarts (honestly, her research into policies for managing obesity had been somewhat sobering), and mostly stops herself from viewing the girls wearing little but their underwear and cat ears at Halloween as slutty (internalised misogyny is real, and some habits are hard to break). 

The first weekend of November, Elena goes home to see Alex’s school production of _Grease_. It’s not really a big deal, even if Alex is playing Kenickie, which is apparently a pretty big deal for a junior, but despite everything Elena’s been trying not to think about recently, she’s not about to hide how much she misses her family. Her family clearly misses her, too, because no one says a word about how Thanksgiving is in three weeks. 

Until her entire family pick her up at the bus station after a six hour ride, and her Abuelita immediately starts complaining about the bags under her eyes, while her mom stresses that she hasn’t been getting enough food (Elena stealthily doesn’t mention all the pop-tarts). Elena wiggles out from between them and says sternly, hands on her hips, “Friday nights in Dorm 7A are _way_ more peaceful.”

Her mom clearly sees straight through her, though, because she starts swinging her hips in a circle and chanting “you missed us, you missed us.” Schneider, of course, joins in immediately.

They only stop when they make it to the car, and her Mom reaches out her hand for Alex’s iPhone. She connects it to the Bluetooth speaker and immediately, they hear the dulcet tones of _Unbreak My Heart._

Elena doesn’t even make it to the end of the first verse before she starts singing along. 

*

Alex’s performance goes well, although the kid playing Danny is _clearly_ gay — even Elena had more chemistry with her partner when she was forced to re-enact _Romeo and Juliet_ in her sophomore English literature class. At the end, Elena and her mom almost knock each other over in their haste to be the first to stand up and start clapping. 

At dinner after the show, Alex announces that he’s going to become an actor. 

“I hope you’ve got a plan to pay for that career path,” her Mom warns. “Thankfully, Elena’s _only_ cost me my beachside views when I buy a retirement condo in Florida, but I don’t know that too many theatre schools give out scholarships to kids who don’t like Shakespare.”

Alex says, “of course. I’ll start off the way all aspiring actors do.”

“Good, I’m going to need a new barista to make my venti caramel frappucinos. The current one’s studying to become an engineer, so she won’t be around forever.”

“Please, Mom,” Alex says, flashing her a grin. “With a cute boyish face and smile like mine, I could easily get work doing toothpaste commercials.”

“He could,” Abuelita says, fondly.

“Hang on,” Schneider says. “Florida? What about the risk of alligators? Not mention skin cancer, constant sand in your shoes, and the rednecks.”

“I wouldn’t worry about either of those things,” Elena says, unable to hide her own grin. “Mom could probably take down an alligator _or_ a redneck if her shoulder didn’t give out, and Alex doesn’t even floss.”

* 

Despite how much fun it is to be back with her family, after dinner Elena heads back to her room feeling a little overwhelmed. She almost misses Belinda, who at the very least has no expectations of her beyond not talking too loudly when she’s hungover on Sunday mornings. She’s just about to pull on her pjs when Abuelita knocks on the door, and then opens it without waiting for an answer.

“What is wrong, Elena?” she asks immediately, sitting down on the bed beside her and pulling in her into a hug. She’s taken off her makeup, even though Alex is still awake and playing cards with Schneider in the kitchen, and Elena momentarily marvels at how much things have changed in the last few years. 

“I just… even _Alex_ knows what he wants to do with his life,” Elena says, sinking into Abuelita’s arms. “While I’ve even started reading ahead in next semester’s textbooks, and nothing inspires me there, either. I mean, economics could be interesting, but the lecturer used to work at the Federal Reserve, so it’s not like heterodox economics is going to be high on the agenda, and I didn’t go to college to become a neoliberal shill.”

“A _what_?”

“A shill, Abuelita, it’s like a person who wholeheartedly endorses something even when really, they’re captured by vested interests.”  
  
“I have a vested interest in ending this conversation,” Abuelita says dryly. Her arm is still around Elena’s shoulder.

“Right, sorry,” Elena says, quickly. “It’s just… everyone else seems so… full of direction, and yet I have no clue what I want to do with my life beyond ‘help people’.” She pauses. “‘Help people.’ I sound like every generic college application ever.”

“That generic college application got you into Harvard, and Yale, and Stanford,” Abuelita reminds her. “From what my friends at church tell me, those are good schools.”

“Your friends at —“ Elena repeats incredulously. “ _That’s_ what makes you think Stanford is a ‘good school’.”

“Yes, well, Rosita’s son went to Yale, and he is now a Hollywood plastic surgeon.” Abuelita frowns. “Of course, he is now giving Tia Maria’s daughter breast implants so she can become a pop star … and not even for a discount.”

It’s Elena’s turn to frown. “You know that’s not…”

“I know, I know,” Abuelita says, waving a hand airily. “The girl sings like a wounded animal. If God did not teach us to love others despite their faults, I would have had her kicked out of the congregation’s choir _years_ ago.” 

“What a punishment.”

“ _Elena_.”

“Sorry Abuelita, Stanford is a good school, not a finishing school. I’m yet to be denied supper for my unrepentant sarcasm.”

Abuelita closes her eyes and looks to the ceiling. “I put up with that girl butchering _Here I Am, Lord_ for _years_ , and this is how God repays me?”

“As much as I appreciate your suffering, Abuelita, how is this story meant to help me?”

“When you had to choose between all these schools, what did you do?”

“I made a pro-con list,” Elena says immediately.

“Yes, I am _still_ finding your post-it notes when I vacuum… but it helped, did it not?”

“How did I not think of something so obvious?”

“Even students at the good schools can be so stupid sometimes,” Abuelita says, patting Elena’s leg consolingly. 

*

When she gets back to college, Elena doesn’t immediately take up her Abuelita’s suggestion. Instead, she throws herself into studying for finals, which are still over a month away, but… one can never be _too_ prepared. 

Unfortunately, she’s less prepared for her second debate of the season. Even after everything that’s been reinforced at practice (don’t take things personally, don’t take the bait if it’s offered, don’t settle disputes about the importance of the United Nations in the parking lot afterwards), Elena struggles to keep her cool. They’re debating a team from California State, and they unfortunately drew the short straw on undocumented immigrants. During their final prep time, Elena tries really hard to stick to the script they’d prepared as they go over it; increasing enforcement would stop immigrants risking their lives to make it across the border and prevent undocumented workers from being exploited by their employers. From the corner of her eye, she sees Lauren mouth, ‘I know,’ with a soft smile, and Elena tries even harder to keep her facial expressions in check. 

And then the debate starts. 

“This isn’t academic,” she says, even though this is literally a college debate, and none of them have any power to change anything. Then she thinks about all the Stanford kids in the audience, many of who will go on to be lawyers and Senators, or who will make enough money to bribe their friends who choose those career paths, and she decides that no, actually they can. “Forcibly removing undocumented immigrants will achieve nothing except tear families apart in a way you can’t even begin to imagine … then again, maybe all those rich people who can no longer get their floors swept or their kids babysat for three dollars an hour might begin to understand when they actually have to negotiate household chores and gender roles with their husbands.”

Zach looks like he both wants to cheer her on and go out to the parking lot and fight her. The rest of the team, including Adam and Cecilia, the two freshmen who joined along with her, look _pissed._ She’s pretty sure she spots Jackie giving Adam an ‘I told you so’ look. 

Afterwards, Elena wants nothing more than to go back to her room, eat a few cinnamon pop tarts, and then start prepping for the next debate, which is only two weeks away. Wallowing seems to be a stereotypical college student hobby, but this semester she already feels like she’s done enough for a lifetime. However, Carmen had said she was coming to watch (but that she’d bring headphones so she didn’t have to hear anyone except Elena speak), so she heads out the front to wait for her friend, so they can walk back to the dorms together. Instead she finds Lauren, who’d somehow found her way through the crowd milling out of the auditorium. 

“I’ll smooth things over with the rest of the team on Monday… you’re not the first freshman to get caught up in the moment.” Lauren pauses. “Who in your family?”

“Is an undocumented immigrant? We’re Cuban. If I tried to keep track of all my relatives, I’d lose count.”

Lauren nods. “My Abuela was from Ecuador, though she passed away a few years ago. But my mum married an Irish man, and no one’s ever asked him for his papers.” 

Elena sighs, because she doesn’t even know where to begin. “I’m sorry I messed up.”

“Look, let me get you ice-cream, you’ll feel better.”

“It’s November.”

“So… we’ll eat it indoors.”

Elena can’t argue with that logic, so they go to the fro-yo place just off campus, and Lauren doesn’t even wince when Elena fills her cup with too much candy to make up for missing out on her pop tarts. 

“We all make mistakes,” Lauren says, like Elena hasn’t already experienced more than her fair share of embarrassment in this lifetime. At least the audience had been listening until she’d flubbed it, which is more than she could say for her recycling plan. “My first debate was a _disaster_.”

“Can we just talk about something else?” 

“Sure,” Lauren says, and launches immediately into a tirade about her roommate, Alyssa, and how she’s totally for the legalisation of weed, but could Alyssa please just do something about the smell. Lauren, of course, totally agrees with Elena’s view on the need to abolish mandatory minimums, which leads to a discussion of their mutual appreciation of Alicia Florrick from _The Good Wife_ , and before Elena realises, it’s after midnight. 

Lauren walks her to her dorm room, still chatting animatedly about their respective feminist pop culture awakenings. (Elena’s had been Dora the Explorer, who was super independent, and a better Spanish teacher than Abuelita, who had mostly tried to teach her using her favourite psalms). 

“Well,” Elena says when they reach her door, fumbling in her purse for her keys. Except, Lauren is right there, and before Elena can add anything else, like ‘good night’, she stretches up on her tiptoes and kisses Elena full on the mouth. It’s not unpleasant, but after a few seconds, Elena finds herself pulling away, thinking, inexplicably of Carmen, and how much nicer her shampoo smells compared to Lauren’s. (Melon is such an _odd_ scent.) 

“I’m flattered,” she says, feeling her cheeks heat up. “but I’m really not interested in you, you know, romantically. But… I mean… friends, right? Friends who both really care about racism in the criminal justice system.”

“Oh.” Lauren, to her credit, takes Elena’s rejection better than Elena had taken Caitlyn’s. “Zach said he thought you might be into that _Emily the Strange_ girl, but I thought it was worth the risk.”

“Ironically, she hates _Emily the Strange_ ,” Elena says, mostly in an attempt to ignore all the other feelings broiling in her gut. “But look, we can’t let this ruin the debate team. I know I messed up today, but… we’re _good_.”

After Lauren leaves, Elena sinks down on her bed, clutches her stomach and thinks _fuck_. For someone who prides herself on being so observant, she really doesn’t know how she messed this one up.

(She doesn’t let herself wallow in her own stupidity for _too_ long. Alvarez women are excellent at denial, but they’re also incredibly good at picking themselves up). 

*

The next morning, she texts Jackie: _I’m sorry_. _I’ll apologise to the team on Monday._

Jackie texts back: _Fine. Don’t waste your talent, Elena_.

Which is _fine,_ if a bit cryptic (she wonders if Zach and Jackie had discussed her again), but what Jackie doesn’t know is, Elena’s already failing to utilise her talents in more ways than one. 

It’s funny that, for all the essays and reports and scholarship applications she’s written over the years, she can’t quite figure out how to say: _hey, Carmen, maybe this is more than a silly crush that I can get over. Let’s do all the things we already do together, only in a more ‘official’ way… once we define what ‘official’ actually means._

Thankfully, she can still express herself in other ways; her essay on Reaganomics comes back with a 98 per cent and a note in the margins that she should consider a history major if she wasn’t already. She goes up to the professor after class and says, thanks, but right now, she’s not particularly interested in digging up the past. 

(She thinks about fifteen year old Elena, so set on rebelling against having a _quinceañera_ , and laughs because back then, things had been so easy.) 

* 

Two days before the last debate of the semester, which occurs the weekend before Thanksgiving, Elena goes back to her dorm room after class. She’s put off following Abuelita’s advice for the longest time (after all, pro and con lists are her _thing_ , but she’d once had a ‘con’ list that said ‘it’s an Ivy league school’, and now she can’t imagine herself anywhere but Stanford), but with her entire family coming for tomorrow’s big event, she thinks it’s time. 

She goes through three sheets of paper before she’s got a list she’s happy with (the dividing line wasn’t entirely straight on the first one). 

She doesn’t sleep that night, and she thinks about texting Carmen several times, but she’s not quite sure how to put the sheer feeling of relief she feels into words.

In hindsight, Elena’s tendency to try and explain everything she’s ever read to her Mom (who now knows a _lot_ about astronomy, thanks to Elena’s third grade project on Pluto, not to mention all the random words she’d once learnt the year Alex had jokingly bought her a dictionary for Christmas), her obsession with teaching her classmates to be more environmentally friendly, and even how easily she fell into a friendship with Carmen, who’s always been interested in hearing what Elena had to say… it should have been obvious. 

*

At eight in the morning, by which time she knows Carmen’s roommate will have headed to the gym (much to Carmen’s disgust), she heads straight for her dorm. 

“Carmen!” she calls, pounding on the door, “Carmen!”

“What’s the emergency?” Carmen asks, pulling her dressing gown closed as she answers the door. Her bed is covered in looseleaf paper and pens, her open biology textbook and her laptop is open to a Spotify play list of Wiccan music. (Elena’s a little afraid to ask what Wiccan music sounds like, although anything is probably better than the girl from her own hall who’s learning the flute). 

“I figured out what I want to do with my life!” she says. “I’m going to become a teacher!”

“Ew, kids,” Carmen says, but she smiles so wide that her teeth actually show for a change.

“Think about it,” Elena says, “I’m going to make sure that kids love math and science and reading and recycling and everything else so much that, when they get to college, they have the same dilemma as me.” 

“Except PE,” she adds quickly. “God, I really hope I don’t have to teach PE.” 

As she says it, Elena makes a disgusted face, and she holds her arms out to Carmen for a hug and excited jig around the room, because she’s so, _so_ glad she’s figured this out. 

Except, Carmen steps right into her arms and kisses her. 

Kissing Carmen is so different to kissing Josh Flores, or Lauren, or her Abuelita, or anyone else she’s kissed (and god, why is she thinking about her Abuelita _now_?). Carmen kisses like her personality, slow and deliberate, occasionally doing this thing with her tongue that hints at all the complexities underneath. That makes it easy for Elena to just roll with it, her hands tugging at the ties of Carmen’s bathrobe until it comes loose between them, revealing Carmen’s Hello Kitty pyjamas.

“They’re not ironic,” Carmen whispers, and then she brings one hand up to tangle in Elena’s hair, until Elena’s way too distracted to think about Hello Kitty or her future or or anything else — unless you count the small part of her that’s wondering why they weren’t doing this so much earlier.

Eventually, they break apart, and Elena wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and stares at Carmen. In this moment, it feels like everything could change, if she let it, but —

With Carmen things have always been so easy. She could probably drop out of college and live in a caravan and Carmen would just complement her trailer trash aesthetic.

“I didn’t think I _needed_ to say anything,” Carmen says, wearing her usual deadpan expression. 

“You never do,” Elena says, and then she leans forward and kisses Carmen again.

“You know,” she says quietly afterwards, Carmen’s biology textbook digging into the small of her back from where they’d ended up on her bed, kissing lazily, “part of the reason I want to be with a teacher is because I know I could have done with more role models like me, growing up… but it looks like things turned out okay in the end.”

*

Later that night, Elena sits cross-legged on her bed and makes another list… this time, of all the things she needs to do before the end of the semester. Now that she’s figured out a major, it’s time to get (even more) serious. Number three on her list is to research every lecturer in the education department and see who might take her on as a undergraduate researcher. And look for summer camps that might take her on as a counsellor, because she’s going to need experience. She’ll have to get in early, because the last thing she wants is to end up at a camp that mandates actual camping. 

Number two is to buy a new brand of lipgloss because Carmen’s lips had felt so soft compared to her own wind-bitten, chapped ones, even though Carmen hadn’t seemed to have minded. (Then again, Carmen had talked even less than usual).

And number one is to brush up on her debate notes, because the last twenty-four hours have driven almost everything else out of her mind. Honestly, though, Elena feels like she’s already won.

*

The morning after, Carmen comes to her dorm to pick her up for the tournament and looks at her shyly for a moment, before kissing her hello without a word of warning. 

Belinda looks up from her bed, where she’s shielding her eyes from the light and looking slightly green.

“We’re off to the debate,” Elena says, because it’s easier than trying to explain anything else. “My family’s coming.”

“Oh… will your mom’s boyfriend be there?” Belinda asks excitedly.

“I hope not,” Elena says, because she can already picture the embarrassing signs Schneider will have made to wave from the crowd, even though she’s already told her family it’s not that kind of event. Her mom has even bought a new dress to wear. 

“Oh… right.”

Elena and Carmen are about to leave, when Belinda nods at both of them in turn and says, “by the way, I told you so.”

Carmen replies, “I never thought someone with such poor taste in interior design could spot even such obvious romantic tension,” and Elena laughs all the way to the auditorium. 

*

But of course, when she arrives at the lecture theatre where the debate is scheduled to be held, her whole family is there, including Schneider, who’s bickering with Alex about who gets to hug her first. (It doesn’t matter in the end, because they all pile on.). Carmen just raises an eyebrow and sneaks off into the auditorium before the rest of the Alvarez family notices her. 

“Oh my god,” Elena says, and rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. 

“What?” Lauren says; she and Zach had clearly been lurking nearby. “Your family’s so _cool_.”

“I _really_ wish you didn’t let them hear you say that.”

“Why?”

Elena just nods at her Abuelita, who’s already telling Zach about the time, before she got married, when she danced with a college boy at her cousin’s _quinceañera. "_ That's why."

*

She doesn’t crush the debate, but she gets through all her points on separation of church and state in the allotted time, and does well enough that Jackie wheels up to her and says, “hope to see you round next semester, Alvarez.”

After the past few weeks, she’ll take that as a win…

*

Afterwards, her family takes her out for dinner. Carmen texts her to say: _I’m so proud of you, but I’m staying away from your family right now. Your mom could crush me to death with one of those excited hugs…_

A few second later she adds: _it seems like it would be a nice way to die._

Elena can’t contain her grin, even when Alex insists on a re-enactment of some freak goal he’d kicked at soccer the previous week on the walk to the restaurant. Schneider almost falls into a trash can pretending to be the keeper. Apparently theatre had been a short-lived fad once Alex had learnt that most actors ended up poor and living off instant ramen in New York City, because “it’s not even _fresh_ , Elena”. 

Eventually, when Abuelita is halfway through rhapsodising about some new outfit she’d bought to wear to church, her family becomes suspicious.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” her mom asks. She’s clearly just as glad to hear the end of what Dr Berkowitz thought about the dress as Elena is. “I’ve never seen you _this_ happy about winning a debate, and I remember when we bickered for weeks when you were in eighth grade about the rules of Monopoly.”

“I mean, I still don’t like that it basically indoctrinates kids into capitalism uncritically, but…” Elena glares at her mom. “Regardless, the rules say _nothing_ about ‘free parking’.” 

Alex groans loudly, and is silenced by a look from Abuelita, who asks, “is this about a _girl_?”

Elena stops with her mouth half-open, a rant sentence about how ‘go to jail’ is emblematic of a society that tries to oppress the working class through the criminal justice system stuck on her tongue.

“Yeah,” her mom adds, her head turning slowly towards Carmen, “ you told me about Caitlyn-with-a-y, and whats-her-name-“

“Sunshine-Daisy,” Schneider interjects, grinning.

Elena groans, because that had been a mistake in more ways than one. She’d only mentioned Sunshine-Daisy, the cute RA in her dorm, because the story about Cailtyn had left her family _begging_ for information about Elena’s dating life at college. They’ve never even spoken, apart from the one time Elena told her that the vending machine light in the corridor wouldn’t stop flickering. Abuelita had conniptions about the idea of Elena and a girl named _Sunshine-Daisy,_ but thankfully the attention was drawn away from her relatively quickly; it turned out that Alex’s next fake girlfriend after ‘Lucy’ had been a Protestant. 

She’s glad she never mentioned the debacle with Lauren (who’d seen the smile and thumbs up Carmen gave her, just before the debate started, and said, “I’m happy for you.”).

“I _will_ tell you,” Elena says earnestly, wondering how her mom would react to Carmen showing up on their doorstep again, “but right now, I’m just kind of figuring things out, and… I’m okay with that.”


End file.
